PETITION TO THE PRESIDENT AND BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF

THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

1. Because the Southern Baptist Convention was born of slavery in 1845, and  because The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary was founded by slaveholders, and
2. Because the seminary was a visible, vocal, and moral foundation for governmental policies-Jim Crow, black codes, homestead discrimination and sharecropping, convict leasing, the Lost Cause, lynching, redlining, segregation, criminalizing Black people, mass incarceration and voter suppression- that have caused severe wealth inequality, and
3. Because the seminary grew during Jim Crow following the defeat of Southern treason in 1865, and was then saved and sustained by convict leasing, and because the seminary grew and flourished with contributions due to white supremacy and segregation throughout the twentieth century,

We urge The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary to -

1. TEACH Critical Race Theory, 
2. REMOVE the names of its slaveholder founders from its buildings,
3. URGE the federal government to legislate and budget to financially repair the legacy of centuries of white supremacy, and
4. GIVE sacrificially from its endowment and assets to Black-led institutions.